He opens the envelope.
The audience waits. An actor grabs his wife's hand, giving it a squeeze for luck. A model, standing beside him, blows a kiss to the audience.
"The winner is," he says, unfolding the paper. But then he stops. He looks at the audience, into the camera.
"Run," he whispers.
The shot rings out, like five tensely popped bottles of champagne. Instinct kicks in and before all hell breaks loose, I am dragging my screaming wife toward my predetermined exit.
ReplyDeleteDespite my pre-dinner pep talk about life as a spy, my wife squirms as though I'm the one trying to kill her. I don't have time to try and calm her down. Frankly, she's less obvious screaming among the five hundred other screaming guests. I plaster a deer-in-the-headlights look across my face and pretend to look around in delayed shock. The room is beyond chaos. Millionaires and gold diggers running every which way, with honest hopes of making it out alive.
I slip my wife through the opening to the hidden dumb waiter. I follow into the opening and catch a glimpse of the speaker just before I fall the fifteen feet to the bottom floor.
He smiles back.